Naturally Percival’s observations of Mars, and still more the conclusions he drew from them, provoked widespread attention among astronomers, some of whom were convinced, while some withheld judgment and others were very frankly disbelievers. This did not amaze him, for he felt that new ideas made their way slowly, and had always done so. He met objections, argued his case and expected ultimate acceptance of his views. Perhaps not less naturally the popular interest was also great. Newspapers as well as periodicals all over America, in England, France, Germany and other countries, published and discussed his views, especially, of course, on the existence of intelligent beings on Mars and their artificial canals upon its surface. Marconi was reported as saying that within a few years we should be in wireless communication with them.

Meanwhile his life had been going on at the usual furious pace; lecturing here and there; writing for scientific journals, mostly, but not wholly, on planets, satellites etc.; managing his own property and his father’s estate; keeping in constant touch with his computers in Boston and his observers at Flagstaff, worrying over the health of one of them whom he urges to take a vacation and recruit; and also standing his watch as observer himself. A watch it was, “Jupiter before dinner and Mars at 4 A.M.” There was also a large correspondence with astronomers and others who were interested in his work. To one of the latter he writes on December 14, 1907: “In answer to your note of Dec. 5, which has been forwarded to me here, I beg to say that the best and final education must always be given by one’s self.”

Although the canals had already been photographed, he was not yet free from the doubters of the actuality of his observations, for on May 15th of that year we find him writing to Professor Simon Newcomb—then at the height of his great reputation who had suggested that the comparative continuity of the canals was an optical illusion, a long letter giving the reasons for believing that this could not be so, but that they must be as observed.[32] The proof of this he was seeking to make more clear, and in this same year he sent Dr. Slipher, with Professor Todd of Amherst College, on an expedition to the Andes to take more photographs of Mars, which appeared in the Century for December.

But it was not all work. The hospitality of the Observatory was kept up; visiting astronomers and friends lent a gayety to the place. Mr. George Agassiz, for example, long his friend in many labors, was there for many months in 1907 and 1909, helping greatly in his observations;[33] the late Professor Edward S. Morse at sundry times, and Professor Robert W. Willson in 1909 and 1914. He was also in kindly relations with his neighbors, who were “courteous enough to ask me to talk, and I am deep in addresses.” In fact some of them were constantly urging him to stand for Senator from the State. He was interested also in children, and in March, 1908, he is sending word to Dr. Slipher about a little girl from Texas eight years old who is to pass through Flagstaff, and asks permission to look through his big telescope as she “just loves astronomy.” He was fond of telling about his meeting a negro tending chickens to whom he suggested keeping a watch on them the next day because they would go to roost about eleven o’clock; and they did, for there was an eclipse of the sun. Some days later he met the negro again, who expressed astonishment at his knowing in advance that the chickens would go to roost, and asked if he had known it a week before. Yes, he had known it then. “Did you know it a month before?” “Yes, I knew it a month before.” “Did you know it a year before?” “Yes, I knew it a year before.” “But those chickens weren’t born then!” Had he lived to the present day he might have discovered a resemblance to some tendencies in ideas about the present depression.

Nor were his thoughts confined to this country, for in August, 1905, he writes to a friend: “I go to Japan this autumn, but how and when I have not yet decided.” His old interest remained, and in April 1908, he arranged an exhibition in Boston by a Shinto priest of walking over hot coals and up a ladder of sword blades. “The place,” he says, “was full and the audience gratified at being asked. While in the distance people outside the pale stood on carts and boys even to the tops of far off houses, one perched on the tip of a chimney. Dr. Suga cut himself slightly but not seriously. He did very well considering, though it was not possible of course for a poor lone priest to come up to what he might have done in Japan. The rite was beautifully set forth and the setting of the whole enclosure worthy the most artistic people in the world. Policemen kept out the crowd and stared aghast, and altogether it was a relished function.”

He probably would have been greatly grieved had he been told that he would never revisit the land where he had spent so much of his earlier life and thought; but astronomy was now his dominant occupation, and was constantly presenting new questions to engross his attention and fill his time. Yet in the years when Mars was not in opposition this did not prevent, indeed it rather stimulated, visits to Europe, where he saw his astronomical friends, and lectured on his discoveries; for he was a member of the National Astronomic Societies of France and Germany, had received from the former in 1904 the Janssen medal for his researches on Mars, and in 1907 Mr. Lampland that of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain for the work on the planets. We find him across the ocean in the summer of 1906, lunching with Sir Robert Ball in Cambridge, Deslandres and Flammarion in Paris, and “pegging away” there at his lectures.

Two years later, on June 10, 1908, he married Miss Constance Savage Keith, and they went abroad at the end of the month. When in London they met his first cousin, A. Lawrence Rotch, the meteorologist, who like him had established and directed, at his own expense, an observatory for the study of his subject; in this case on Blue Hill near Boston. Percival wanted to photograph measurable lines to see how they appeared in a camera from the air. So he went up with his cousin in a balloon, and obtained photographs of the paths in Hyde Park which came out very well. His wife also went up with them; and, what with his reputation, the ascent in a balloon and their recent marriage, the event was too much for a reporter to resist; and there appeared in a newspaper an imaginary picture of an astronomer and a bride in a wedding dress taking their honeymoon in the basket of a balloon. They travelled together in England, Switzerland, Germany and France, and she recalls, when he was giving a lecture at the Sorbonne, a sudden exclamation from a Frenchman directly behind her: “Why! He is even clever in French!”

Mrs. Lowell has written an account of the diligence, the enthusiasm, the hardships of Percival and his colleagues, and the spirit of Flagstaff:

“In October, soon after our return from Europe, I discovered that the scientist’s motto is—“Time is sacred.” I was to meet him on the train for Flagstaff leaving the South Station at 2 P.M.; anxious to impress him with my reputation for being punctual, I boarded the train about ten minutes before two. Percival came into the car, holding his watch in his hand, just about two minutes before two. He turned to me: “What time were you here?” I answered triumphantly: “Oh, I got here about ten minutes ago.” His reply was: “I consider that just as unpunctual as to be late. Think how much could have been accomplished in ten minutes!” I have never forgotten that remark. Percival never wasted minutes.

“Late in the afternoon of the third day, as we were nearing Flagstaff, through the dusk we could see that there had been a heavy fall of snow, so deep that when the train stopped our Pullman, being far in the rear, was where the snow—not having been shovelled—was almost level with the upper step. The men from the Observatory were there, and their first words were ‘Seeing Good.’ Percival jumped into the deep snow, and taking Mr. E. C. Slipher with him, drove to the telescope.

“Astronomers take much for granted so far as the details of domestic life are concerned, and I made up my mind to be a help and not a hindrance. Dr. V. M. Slipher’s wife came to the rescue, and under her supervision things were soon adjusted even to a hot supper and preparation for breakfast the next morning. She was, and always is, a wonder. Though the wife be not an astronomer a happy asset is it if she can appreciate her husband’s work, his sacrifices and self-denials. Many times have I seen their frost-bitten ears and thumbs; hungry and tired men, but never complaining—patience personified. They are slaves to the laws that rule the celestial.

“The house we lived in on Mars Hill was a long rambling one, both roof and sides shingled. Inside all but two rooms were finished, and partitioned. Two were papered; one of them I papered because no paper hanger happened to be in town. Occasionally Percival would come in to see how the work was progressing, and help by steadying the ladder or stirring the paste. The sitting room—or den, as it was referred to more often—was lined with half logs from which the bark had not been stripped. In the ceiling were logs used as beams. During the evening, when all was quiet, one might hear insects busily working out some scheme of their own. Open spaces were beamed and, as the logs did not exactly fit, through the spaces trade-rats would descend from the attic.

“To love nature, and the one for whom one works, it matters not where one is; that is what one realizes when on Mars Hill. One learns to go without things. They seem of such minor importance to that for which the men are seeking; one gets ashamed of oneself to think otherwise. Each man moves with a definite purpose, indefatigable workers, no thought of themselves when skies are clear, always watching, cold or torrid heat makes no difference, work goes on just the same.

“I became deeply impressed with the necessity of obedience to laws. I said once to Percival that I had been asked if it were true that he was an atheist, a non-believer. His answer was that he believed in keeping the laws; what chaos would happen if they were not. Often he would quote passages from the Bible—[Genesis I, 14-20]. The laws made on Mount Sinai, he said, are still the same laws to obey. To live in the atmosphere of such men accomplishing great things, deprived of many material comforts, makes one feel humble and spurs one on to ‘Help and not to hinder.’

“Servants we often had to do without. They would come out with us, and then after a few days, learning of the nearness to the Pacific coast, the lure of California would bring from them some lame excuse to leave, at once! To obtain others, when none were to be had in the town, I would have to go to Los Angeles. Finally, after several had left, I persuaded Percival to let me try to do the cooking; and later he would refer to that time as happy peaceful days. With the help of the kind wives, Mrs. Slipher and Mrs. Lampland, I learned much, how to make bread and soup,—two very essential articles in our household,—and to get up camping outfits and quick meals for unexpected guests.

“Lonesome, monotonous—never. Distant as Mars Hill may be from large cities, something of interest was happening continually. The State Normal School of Arizona is in the town, and on certain nights classes of students were brought up the hill to look through the telescope. Flagstaff is on the main line of the Santa Fe. There were three incoming trains from the East each day, and as many from the West, and many people stop off there to visit the different points of interest, the Lowell Observatory being one.

“In August, 1910, a group of astronomers, representing the International Union for CoÖperation in Solar Research, debarked from the train, on their way to Pasadena; Professor Herbert H. Turner from England among them. He it was who many years later suggested for Percival’s ‘Planet X’ the name Pluto. The group, of about thirty, arrived by the first morning train and stayed at the Observatory until the last train left at night. The one thing that I was successful in getting enough of for lunch and dinner was watermelon. It proved a happy hit; for a year or two afterward, when telling how much they enjoyed their visit, the watermelons were spoken of as being such a treat. It was a hot day and the melons were cold; probably that explained their enthusiasm.

“One Christmas we invited all the children of Flagstaff to come to the Observatory for a Christmas tree and supper. Percival dressed as Santa Claus and spoke to them down the chimney; then he came down into the Library where they were gathered about the tree, and gave a present and candy to every child. That was twenty-seven years ago. When I was in Flagstaff this spring, the little child I had held in my lap while Percival read ‘The Night Before Christmas’ came to speak to me and told me never would she forget that Christmas, and that her two little children repeatedly asked her to tell them the story of that Christmas and all that happened at the Santa Claus party on Mars Hill.”

In a recent letter to Mrs. Lowell, Dr. Lampland also gives a glimpse into Percival’s life at Flagstaff; and though written to refresh her recollections she preferred to insert it as it stands.

“Fresh in memory and pleasant to recall are your many visits to Flagstaff and your activities at the Observatory, where you were designing and supervising architect, carrying through the additions to the director’s residence, the garage, and the new administration building. And I also remember your valued help to us in connection with the house in which we live and your telegram ‘Mr. Lowell gives benediction and sanction to plans. Proceed.’”

He then goes on to tell of Percival’s friends from both West and East, and continues:

“You remember he was an enthusiastic gardener and always had a garden here at the Observatory. He had great success with many flowers and I recall especially fine displays of hollyhocks, zinnias, and a considerable variety of bulbs. Gourds, squashes and pumpkins were also great favorites. You will remember one year the especially fine collection of gourds and that bumper crop of huge pumpkins, many prize specimens being sugar fed. At times Dr. Lowell could be seen in the short intervals he took for outdoor recreation, busy with his little camel’s hair brush pollenizing some of the flowers. And perhaps you will remember the little record book lying on the back veranda containing his observations of the daily growth of the diameter of the gourds, all measured carefully with little calipers. Then the frequent, almost daily, walks on the mesa. Certainly he knew all the surrounding country better than anyone here. He would refer to the different places such as Wolf Canyon, Amphitheatre Canyon, Indian Paint Brush Ridge, Holly Ravine, Mullein Patch, etc. In these walks he seemed to be constantly observing something new and of course trees, flowers, and wild life always interested him. Trees were an endless source of interest to him and he took many trips to more distant localities for these studies. Cedars or junipers seemed to be favorite subjects for study, though other varieties or kinds were not overlooked. An oak and an ash were named after him, new species that were discovered on the Observatory mesa and in Sycamore Canyon.

“At every season of the year he always found something in wild life to fascinate him, and you will remember his observations and notes of butterflies, birds, squirrels, rabbits, coyotes, deer and other inhabitants of the mesa. These friends must never be disturbed or harmed. But it was permissible to hunt with a camera! And he himself delighted with his kodak, photographing footprints, etc., and often attempting to get exposures of the creatures themselves. The Observatory grounds were a sanctuary for wild life.

“For many of us an interesting side of eminent personages is to know something about their activities, such for example as reading, outside of their professional occupations. In Dr. Lowell’s case you should find ample opportunity to treat a subject that will not admit of monotony. It would seem that practically every field of knowledge interested him. For the lighter reading as a relaxing and restful diversion you will remember the full bookshelves of detective stories, travel, exploration, etc. Accounts of adventure and discoveries, if well written, were welcome to his list of miscellaneous reading. The Latin classics were always near at hand, and widely and well had he read them, and much were they prized as friends in his later life.

“As you know, it is not easy for the observing astronomer to lead a strictly regular life in that the hours at the telescope often make it necessary to use, for the much needed rest, part of the daily hours usually given to work. His intense occupation with his research problems, however, was broken with great regularity for short intervals before lunch and dinner. These times of recreation were given to walks on the mesa or work in the garden. When night came, if he was not occupied at the telescope, he was generally to be found in his den. It was not always possible for him to lay aside his research problems at this time of the day, but he did have some wholesome views on the necessity of recreation and a necessary amount of leisure to prevent a person from falling into the habit of the ‘grind.’ To those who came to his den the picture of some difficult technical work near his chair, such as Tisserand’s Mechanique Celeste will be recalled, though he might at the time be occupied with reading of a lighter character. And occasionally during the evening he might be seen consulting certain difficult parts upon which he was pondering....